On 06/17/2010 04:16 AM Nicolas Thierry-Mieg wrote: > ken wrote: >> Hey, folks, >> >> Sometimes my workstation bogs down... slows to a crawl. Using gkrellm, >> it's obvious the CPU is the laggard. The top utility confirms: the load >> average gets up over 4 at times. But this occurs when cpu stepping pegs >> the speed at 600MHz. This processor is capable of 1.5GHz and when it's >> allowed to run at that speed, the load average is under 2, which is fine. >> >> So the question is: what's a good /etc/sysconfig/cpuspeed file? This >> workstation is a notebook and it can get hot. Of course I'd rather type >> on slow machine than a machine with a fried mainboard, so a report of a >> high temperature should kick in the governor and lower the speed. > > well, *is* the CPU really hot when cpuspeed slows it down? If it is then > there's no need to tweak /etc/sysconfig/cpuspeed , the defaults are > doing what you want. No, The temperature can be relatively low and cpu is still stepped down to 600MHz, this while the load is over 3 (the cpu idle reads 1%). > Depending on your CPU you can monitor its temp with rpms from elrepo, eg > kmod-coretemp for some intels. I've been monitoring the temperature, cpu speed (governed), and other system factors for years with ondemand and gkrellm. The problem really is as I first stated. And the solution-- good settings for /etc/sysconfig/cpuspeed-- is really what is needed (at least as far as can be discerned at this time). Thanks for your help.